When do you think people will finally start to understand atheism?

Alright, so a couple of days ago I was talking to a friend of mine in class. And we began to talk about religion. Now I'm far from the kind of person that likes to showcase my views on things, But I told him I was an Atheist. He Actually didn't believe me at first, and said that people have to take a oath to become an atheist. We literally argued about this for 5 whole minutes before I finally said lets go to an computer and get google the definition. after I showed him what atheism actually is, He still retained doubt. I just said forget it, and ended the conversation on it there.

What I'm asking is how long will people remain that ignorant on atheism. It's not like he's dumb when it comes to other topics. He says He's a christian and he never even read the bible. And when I told him and another friend I read it They Laughed. Oh yeah and I forgot to mention one of the guys laughing has a tattoo that says "blessed" on his chest. And he never read the bible. That's just stupid to me, But I kinda want to know what other people think about this.

Tom - don't you suspect that this is quite similar to what those wealthy capitalists were thinking?

"How can you have order in a state without religion? For, when one man is dying of hunger near another who is ill of overeating, he cannot resign himself to this difference unless there is an authority which declares 'God wills it thus.' Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet."-- Napoleon Bonaparte --

One history of the Republican Party says that during the 1970s, someone drew attention to the similarity of fundamentalist xian beliefs to conservative beliefs. It remained for President Reagan to invite the fundies into the Party.

A smart move, in that it greatly increased Party membership.

A dumb move in that they were the majority and took over the Party.

Will internal conflict destroy the party that Lincoln and other anti-slavery people created?

I was a Repub in Arizona in the 1970s and heard Goldwater speak to activists. In immigrant issues he may have had a bit of conscience, but a history of the Party (Rule and Ruin, by Kabaservice) says that in the early 1960s he played a major part in excluding the Party's moderates.

This led to a need to recruit replacements. Southern Dems (whose ancestors had owned slaves the Repubs had freed) re-registered as Repubs and brought their racism into the Party. Needing more bodies led to Reagan's inviting the Fundies, who brought their big government authoritarianism into the Party.

Why in pluperfect hell did the 1960s Repubs, including Goldwater, exclude moderates? Ruin was a long time coming, but it appears to have arrived. We are witnesses to the Last Hurrah of America's Racist White Males. Plutocrats don't care who helps them win power.

Thanks, Barry. NOT!!!

PS. I agree with Mark Twain; Congress is America's criminal class.

Effective reform will require a national initiative and referendum amendment to the federal Constitution. Won't happen in my lifetime; it's more democracy (and the accompanying responsibility) than Americans want.

Ike turned out to be a good President. Only dumb thing I can recall was allowing some preacher talk him into printing : In god we trust on our currency. Sounds good, it couldn't sound any better if it was TRUE.

Ike gave the impression of having a sense of honor. He ran for president and I, fresh out of the Navy and old enough to vote, chose him over Stevenson. One year later I hated that he okayed the CIA's overthrow of an elected Iranian government. Recently I learned that Truman had refused.

The years since have been unkind to Iranians and Americans. We installed a tyrant and trained his secret police. In the mid-1970s, Iranians overthrew him. He entered the USofA, allegedly for medical care. Young Iranians figured it was for his protection and took over the our embassy. The Iranian religious took over Iran and are still giving us trouble. I figure 9/11 was long delayed payback for our Middle Eastern foreign policy. America's foreign policy and Americans' civil liberties have long been on a collision course

Some may allege Iran's being adjacent to the USSR made it a Cold War tactic. The published histories I've seen say it was because England's Anglo-Iranian Oil (now BP) was treating Iran and Iranian workers the way America's robber barons treated America and American workers in the late 1800s.